The Sydney Cricket Ground Trust has signed a five-year, $10 million deal with Kansas City-based Sporting Innovations to deliver fans and members a digital app from which they will be able to order food, watch highlights, bet on matches and buy tickets.

The SCG will adopt the customer research management platform Fan 360 and also release an app backed by Sporting Innovations’ Euphoria platform.

The app will eventually have at least eight or nine different uses, including in-seat food ordering, in-game vision and statistics, wagering and ­ticketing and merchandise sales.

SCG Trust general manager
Piers Thompson
said the move was both about collecting data from stadium visitors and also enhancing the experience of fans at a time when some sports were suffering falling attendances at some matches.

“What we have to do is personalise the experience for people that are coming here to watch our events," Mr Thompson said. “It’s that age-old saying: you are competing with the experience of watching in your living room. So we have to make it worthwhile for them to come here."

The new system will capture ­information about fans’ spending ­habits and social media use, which will then be used to offer tailored deals and specials.

Getting more people through the gate would in turn mean the system offered an obvious commercial benefit for the SCG.

In-seat ordering

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“We’ll be able to see what they like and, for example, if we know someone buys a ticket for a certain match and then comes and buys food from a certain place and also some merchandise," Mr Thompson said. “And then later, we could offer them special food deals or two-for-one offers, or ticket price specials and so on."

Sporting Innovations installed a ­version of the system at the home ground of US Major League Soccer club Sporting Kansas City in 2011. Since then, corporate partnership revenue has tripled, while merchandise sales have risen 156 per cent and attendances are up 145 per cent.

In-seat ordering began at the Sydney Swans AFL home match at the SCG against Fremantle on Saturday with the Doyle’s seafood outlet in the $197 million newly refurbished grandstands.

It means fans can theoretically remove the problem of missing large parts of the game while standing in line to order food.

On the new system, fans are able to order food by clicking through a page after logging on to the SCG high-speed Wi-Fi system.

They then collect the food via express lanes after being notified that it is ready.

Mr Thompson said other features of the app would be rolled out progressively this year and he hoped upgrades would follow at the adjacent Allianz Stadium.

More opportunities

The deal is the first outside the US for Sporting Innovations and its managing director, Asim Pasha, hopes it will lead to more deals with other stadiums in the region.

“We would certainly see more opportunities in Australia and Asia, as well. The SCG has done very well and we are happy to be working with them," he said.

Mr Pasha said having the partnership with Sporting Kansas City, which helped develop the company, meant it could test new technology at its own stadium.

“We now have fans coming in for design sessions and helping us ­understand more about what they want. It’s an important part of our design process," he said.